Sophie Parkes is a writer of novels, short fiction, life writing and music journalism. A graduate of the University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University, she also holds a doctorate in creative writing and folklore from Sheffield Hallam University. You can read more about her research here.

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Her historical novel, Out of Human Sight, was shortlisted for the NorthBound Book Award at the 2021 Northern Writers' Awards and was published by Northodox Press in 2023. 

In 2017, Sophie won the Arvon Award at the Northern Writers’ Awards for her collection of short stories influenced by English folk song. You can read some of her published short stories at the bottom of this page.

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Sophie's interest in specialist music, particularly folk music, has seen her publish the official biography of one of her all-time musical heroes, Eliza Carthy. Wayward Daughter (Soundcheck Books) came out in 2012 and the title of the book was later used by Eliza to name both an album and her big band. Sophie continues to write about music and musicians for titles including Songlines and Rock'n'Reel.

In 2016, Sophie worked with endurance athlete, Blind Dave Heeley, to get his incredible story down onto paper. From Light to Dark is published by Pitch, with a portion of the story influencing short film, Seven Days, made by Pixel Revolution Films. It is also available as an audio book narrated by Adrian Chiles.

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Sophie is an Associate Lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University and Leeds Arts University, teaching on both BA and MA Creative Writing programmes. She is also a frequent facilitator of creative writing workshops in the community, leading workshops for The Portico Library, Saddleworth Literature Festival, The Tameside Health and Wellbeing College, and Tameside Libraries, amongst others.

She also founded and continues to run Mossley Writers and in 2021 won an Arts Council England grant for The Tameside WordShop, a year-long programme of creative writing workshops for Tameside writers. You can watch the film about the initiative here.

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You can read (or watch!) some of Sophie's stories here:

The Book of Manchester: 'Shock City'

LOOM: 'Cornflowers'

Rituals & Declarations: 'Procession'

Dear Damsels: 'May Day'

M6 Theatre (performance): 'Bird Behaviour'

The Real Story (creative non-fiction): 'Hero'

Chethams Library collection: 'Mary Leech, née Blackwall, on returning to her parental home'

Chine Magazine: 'Milkers Day'

Streetcake (issue 52): 'Silence Surrounds Her'

The Pygmy Giant: 'The Unquiet Grave' 

William Faulkner's Typewriter: 'Tonight's the night that'll be the night'

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